‘The blood diamonds of Mexico’: given avocados’ dodgy credentials, should I still be eating them?

To cultivate this ‘green gold’, Mexico’s forests have been stripped and its water table lowered, even as the massive profits attract drug cartels and crime
Getting the fruit to Hong Kong also requires expensive temperature-controlled transport and storage as part of tortuous supply chains

David Dodwell

Published: 9:15am, 9 Apr 2022

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As every horizon, in every direction, is roiled by disasters, crises and general gloom, all of which are outside my control, I have chosen to distract myself this week with a problem closer to home: whether I should continue to eat avocados.

I feel embarrassed to be devoting myself to such a middle-class Western dilemma when so many millions in Ukraine are being bombed into oblivion, and while so many in Ethiopia – or in disgracefully forgotten Afghanistan – face starvation, but there is relief in occasionally retreating into one’s bourgeois bubble.

And it is seriously bugging me that it is so hard to find an edible avocado. I took comfort in a recent Dutch survey in which supermarket shoppers found 35 per cent of their avocados either unripe or too ripe – and that 25 per cent had to be dumped as a result. The shoppers complained that it was a gamble to buy an avocado, which seriously undermined trust in their supermarkets.

I am ashamed to admit that I find myself in the supermarket every week poking, probing and foraging through green mountains of rock-solid avocados in search of something edible – alongside creaky, elderly Hong Kong women foraging similarly among the oranges, apples and broccoli heads.

I am frustrated that when I eventually find those few pliable enough not to break a knife, they develop mildew within a day of reaching home, going brown and rotten.

Avocados may be a superfruit, loaded with vitamins, minerals and good cholesterol, but they are also the most fickle, and burdened with some very questionable credentials – harmful to the environment, muddled up with Mexican drug cartels, and delivered through tortuously long global supply chains.

01:32

Buying avocados in Hong Kong: throwing money into the bin?

Irish Michelin-starred chef JP McMahon has banished avocados from his kitchen, calling them the “blood diamonds of Mexico”. I have yet to reach that level of animus, but share a passing sympathy.

We have the Aztecs to thank for introducing avocados to the world. They called them ahuacatl, translated literally as “testicle”. I don’t think this was an allusion to any aphrodisiac qualities, more a humorous reference to their shape.

It seems they were renamed avocados around 1669 by Sir Hans Sloane, who succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society. The name change apparently came less from any prudish discomfort but because ahuacatl was so difficult to pronounce.

Mexico remains by far the biggest avocado producer, with around a third of the global crop, the Dominican Republic and Peru accounting for a further 17 per cent. And just one state – Michoacan, west of Mexico City – accounts for almost all of Mexico’s production.

Visitors to the town of Tancitaro, in Mexico’s Michoacan state, are greeted with a sculpture of a giant avocado to underscore that this is the authentic avocado capital of the world. Photo: Tribune News Service

There are at least 15 species of avocado, but the leathery black-green one we commonly see in our supermarkets is the Hass avocado. All of the species need a Mediterranean-type climate, and are hugely thirsty.

Just two markets – the United States and the European Union account for no less than 80 per cent of consumption. The surge in demand since the US opened its market to Mexican avocados in 1997 (a clear beneficiary of the North American Free Trade Agreement) has been huge, with per capita consumption at around 4kg per year – more than double Europe’s.

The annual US Superbowl final every February has become a veritable guacamole orgy, accounting for no less than 7 per cent of global annual consumption, according to the World Economic Forum. Bloomberg tells us that over the Superbowl weekend this year, a 9kg box of avocados cost more than US$26, almost double 2020 prices.

A soldier stands near a bullet-ridden truck after a shoot-out in Parangaricutiro, Mexico, on March 10. Authorities said five suspected drug cartel gunmen were killed in a firefight between gangs. Photo: AP

This explosion in demand has brought fortune and environmental challenges in equal measure. The massive wealth has drawn in Mexican drug cartels (hence the “blood diamonds” reference) and wrought massive environmental harm.

Forests have been stripped, and the heavy irrigation demand has lowered the water table, causing thousands of “mini-earthquakes” every year. Huge quantities of fertilisers and pesticides are required to sustain plantation output.

Of particular environmental concern is the epic annual migration of millions of monarch butterflies from Canada and the US. These butterflies winter in the Oyamel fir tree forests along the eastern perimeter of Michoacán, and have been put in jeopardy by massive forest clearing for avocado orchards.

Monarch butterflies cluster on tree branches in the Amanalco de Becerra sanctuary, on the mountains near the extinct Nevado de Toluca volcano, in Mexico, on February 14, 2019. Photo: AP

That avocados ripen so fast has also created huge supply chain challenges, requiring expensive temperature-controlled transport and storage – less a problem exporting to the US, but a major headache when exporting to Europe or here into East Asia.

The website Sustainability Matters Daily reports that avocados last just three to four days before deterioration, compared with up to seven days for bananas and tomatoes and up to three weeks for oranges, lemons and apples. Which, of course, explains why I and so many other avocado lovers end up in such a love-hate relationship.

Avocados’ “superfood” credentials are clear-cut, yet so many parts of the world have barely been introduced to them (the only Asian suppliers are Australia and Indonesia, and potentially huge markets like China remain “potential”, its consumption a tiny fraction of America’s). As a result, both the World Avocado Organisation and the Hass Avocado Board predict a strong growth in global demand over the coming decade.

All this leaves my avocado dilemma unresolved. I can look for “fair trade” labels (difficult in Hong Kong), but as with so many foods today, I will have to live with the gnawing reality that my diet causes perhaps-serious environmental harm.

And I must learn to live with my elbow-to-elbow contest with wily old Chinese women as I forage for that minority of edible avocados in our supermarkets.

David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view